Christopher Cuomo keeps getting trashed!

FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2013

In our view, he richly deserves it: Tuesday evening, we were desperate to escape the mawkish coverage of the crimes in Cleveland. When Anderson Cooper threw to Christopher Cuomo, we decided to accept this escape.

Cuomo was doing a special interview program with Amanda Knox. We had never followed that case. We decided to watch.

We expected to watch one segment. Cuomo’s performance was so appalling that we ended up watching the entire program—and it turned out to be 90 minutes long!

We’re glad to see that Cuomo has been getting roasted for his appalling behavior, in which he went after Knox for her sexual conduct, real and imagined, like some sort of medieval cleric on a very strong dose of acid. As the disgraceful program unfolded, we were struck by Cuomo’s sexual prurience and by his total failure to develop the facts of the case.

As we watched Cuomo, we were struck by how unconvincing his basic performance was. He seemed to be trying to play the tough-guy, no-nonsense TV interviewer—some sort of cross between Bill O’Reilly and an actual prosecutor.

In our view, he just wasn’t very good at striking this pose. But good God! How hard he seemed to be trying!

We couldn’t help thinking how much is at stake at such moments for TV pimps like Cuomo. As we have told you again and again, the rewards are very great today for people who do the news on TV. People will say and do what it takes to land and keep those jobs.

Christopher Cuomo is on TV because his father was talented and because his name is well-known. To us, he seemed to be trying very hard to keep the big sacks of cash rolling in.

That said, this same corrupting process operates elsewhere on cable news channels. Sensible progressives should be suspicious of the way this industry’s vast rewards may cause liberal stars to behave.

From Milligan’s piece, an excerpt: Below, you see a sample of Cuomo’s work from this horrendous program. Trust us, it got worse:

CUOMO (5/7/13): Were you into deviant sex? Insensitive question, but hey, we gotta get to what it is. This fuels the doubt. Were you into that kind of experimentation?

KNOX: No.

CUOMO: Did Meredith [Kercher, the murder victim] suspect you were into these types of things and created a barrier between the two of you?

KNOX: No.

CUOMO: And therefore you resented her because she was judging you? None of that?

KNOX: No. Absolutely not. There's no evidence of that.

CUOMO: That's the theory. Knox is into some freaky sexual things. She tried to pull in Meredith, who was a staid, buttoned-up Brit, she wasn't into it, and it went wrong ... That was in the discussion of the judges, yes?

KNOX: Absolutely. I was there in the courtroom when they were calling me things like "violent," "whore," and "deviant." And it's all untrue.

CUOMO: Where are they getting that from? Did you have any type of experimental activities that you're embarrassed to talk about? That they know about?

KNOX: Well in the book I talk about all my sexual experiences, and I haven't needed to talk about the details of that because they aren't deviant. I wasn't strapping on leather and bearing a whip. I've never done that.

CUOMO: No group activities?

KNOX: I've never taken part in an orgy, ever.

As it continued, it did get worse, and it went on forever. We were especially appalled by this disgraceful hook:

CUOMO: You're shocked that there's going to be a retrial, yes?

KNOX: Yes.

CUOMO: Why?

KNOX: Because there's no evidence against me. Because the physical evidence that the prosecution was putting forth and damning against me was proven to be wrong. And for all of their theories about my personality and my behavior, there is nothing that links me to this murder. I am not present at the crime scene. I am just not. And the idea that I could have participated in a murder and yet be not present at the crime scene is ludicrous. So people can talk about my behavior and talk about my active sexual life all they want, but it's irrelevant to the fact that there is no evidence that places me at the murder scene.

CUOMO: Do you think you come off too, “They can't prove it,” and not enough, “I didn't do it?” Do you understand the distinction between those two? Ask me if I killed somebody, the answer is no, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Not, “You can't prove it.” Not, “You can't place me at the scene.” Do you understand how “You can't place me at the scene” sounds cagey?

What a disgraceful person! In this exchange, Amanda Knox dared to note that the evidence used against her has turned out to be bogus. To Christopher Cuomo's suspicious mind, this also suggested her guilt.

Since Tuesday, we’ve been trying to think if we’ve ever seen a more disgraceful TV performance. Three days later, we still can’t give you a cite.

24 comments:

It was so awful.... I couldn't stop watching ! Tell me about it. Coumo pushes it at the end, but prurient interest is at the heart of the salability of this story, and that goes for Knox's book. Apparently there are claims the Italian prosacutors sexed up the charges to get a conviction, such things have occurred in this country. If Coumo didn't mention this, he was being a jerk. Otherwise he was simply talking about what Knox came on to talk about. She may need the book money for her legal bills.

Yes, this is an awful interview. Have there even more disgraceful TV performances? I don't know. Maybe some of Nancy Grace's work might meet that standard.

BTW Cuomo deserves the blame, but I wonder how much blame should go to the station. Did someone higher up at CNN review and approve the approach Cuomo took? Or even suggest that approach? Is is a coincidence that both this awful interview and the awful Nancy Grace both appeared on CNN?

"Do you think you come off too, “They can't prove it,” and not enough, “I didn't do it?” Do you understand the distinction between those two? Ask me if I killed somebody, the answer is no, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Not, “You can't prove it.” Not, “You can't place me at the scene.” Do you understand how “You can't place me at the scene” sounds cagey?"

What we see here seems to be a common malady of TV reporters and pundits. They put a bizarrely huge amount of importance on body language and on the way speech is phrased, imagining they can peer into someone's soul through a twenty second soundbite. You'll see it with sports reporters/pundits too ("His body language isn't good, that will rub off on his teammates").

Maybe it's because TV reporters themselves spend so much time thinking about their own image and body language that it becomes central to their worldview?

". . . . this same corrupting process operates elsewhere on cable news channels. Sensible progressives should be suspicious of the way this industry’s vast rewards may cause liberal stars to behave."

Absolutely true. But there's a difference between starting with the general proposition that, say, Rachel Maddow is a horrible person or Ezra Klein is stupid, and then using some marginal and cherry-picked statement or omission to say, "See, see, I told you," and simply reporting the specific instance (or instances) of bad reporting and letting a sufficient pattern of specifics establish the general proposition. (There have been more than enough specifics on Dowd to justify the general condemnations here.) It is perfectly legitimate even to focus attention on failures by those on "our side," although ideally the controlling principle should be whether it is being reported elsewhere or not.

It should be a given that all TV personalities, MSNBC or otherwise, are narcissists. I would still prefer that at least a few of our narcissists who do some good work are being exposed to the public, even if they drop the ball sometimes. Maddow gets on Letterman or Jimmy Fallon sometimes. There weren't any a few years ago.

Spare us the superficial sympathy! You morons are upset, -->are upset only because this cold-blooded narcissistic psychopath, Amanda Knox, is a gentile attractive white female (I'm white so go straight to hell with the racism comments). Her complete lack of sympathy for anyone but herself is typical of psychopaths. At the murder scene news video shows her smiling, kissing, and nuzzling up to her 'boyfriend' while Meredith Kirchner's butchered/slaughtered body is being wheeled away (with blood dripping from underneath the gurney). Not a shred of sympathy or horror in her face, her only concern is nuzzling, kissing and self-concern.

In addition, this lying perjurer (Amand Knox) falsely accused a completely innocent man (a bar owner) to take the blame off herself; the man was later exonerated by investigators and later sued Amanda Knox for damages and WON. She admitted that she lied to police when she pointed the finger of blame at this innocent man. That is the piece of smelly slime that you ignorant shallow conditioned biased fools are defending.

Go look up the facts before deciding someone is deserving of sympathy based solely on their looks and gender.